Recruiting the Best Talent on a Budget

Recruiting is big business in major corporations, but for startups, small business and non-for profits, recruitment doesn’t need to break the bank. Here are a few tips to maximize ROI:

Connect with organizations with similar missions: Find a regional non-for profit supporting development of skills and partner to tap into their existing talent pool. For example, Green Bronx Machine student participants would be an excellent asset to a new restaurant or organic farming operation over the summer.

Use Meetup to facilitate larger networking events: Meetup groups are a new way to reach a large market of similar interested people in a local area, both future candidates and customers. Check out New York Impact Investing group to learn about upcoming events including Impact in Travel sponsored by Inspiring Capital on March 27th.

Engage your social media: Job boards such as monster.com are not new, but creating social media campaigns can facilitate opportunities to engage with potential candidates. Sites like Net Impact is an avenue to interface with students and professionals working for a sustainable future. Focus on targeted campaigns by using specific professional platforms within sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Campaigns using mini-case competitions, small design projects, or other interactive tools will excite a new generation of talent.

Ask current employees: Your best recruiting tool may be sitting next to you. Engaged and satisfied employees/ interns/ volunteers have the opportunity to sell your organizations strengths to their contacts and suggest qualified candidates. Their past experiences or non-work activities can open up new avenues for networking. Offering a small incentive for each referral that is hired may sweeten the deal too.